Rodney Dudar

Age: 58 Save Date: 7/16/2002 Activity: At work

On Monday, July 15, 2002, I was having some chest pains on and off at work. On Tuesday, July 16, 2002, at approximately 6:00 p.m., the pain came back and just kept getting worse. I asked one of my co-workers to get my supervisor and friend, Bill McNellis. When Bill arrived I told him that I thought I was having a heart attack. He got me to the floor and hooked the defibrillator that was in our office up on me. The pain kept getting worse and I could not breathe. I told Bill that I was going to die and he assured me that he was not going to let that happen. I felt the life going out of my body. I felt my body being lifted in the air toward a bright light. The higher I went the brighter the light became. Just before I reached the light, I was turned over and dropped to the ground. Before I hit the ground, I came back to life. If it was not for the defibrillator and Bill's training, I would have died. The EMTs that came would have been too late to save me. My heart had already stopped beating. I thank God, Bill, the defibrillator company, and the people who decided to put the defibrillator in our office for my life. My mother died of a heart attack at the age of 42 and my brother died of a heart attack at the age of 31. There were no defibrillators in those days; if there had been, perhaps they wouldn't have died.